"Anna?" The Joker stood paralyzed before the small creature sitting in front of him, tied to a rickety chair in his workroom. She looked him dead in the eye as she asserted that at least 80% of the action was her fault. Nearly everyone he'd brought into this room was too terrified to look him in the eye. This girl didn't flinch. He saw her eyes question how he knew her name but she didn't say another word. She was trying to look fearless and he almost believed her but then her left eye twitched. It was a nervous tick she had inherited from him. It happened when they were on the verge of breaking in one way or another. She was really here and he'd been inches away from blowing her brains out before even seeing her face. He could have killed her. He would have killed her already in any other situation. He would have probably never found out it was her either. Then he would have spent the rest of his life looking for a ghost. But fate spared him that horrible fate and his daughter stood before him; alive, defiant, fierce.

Anna looked like a vicious animal that had been caught in a snare but refused to rollover and die. He'd bet money she had enough killer instinct to chew her own hand off like a wolf if it meant her freedom. He had it too. The similarity warmed him somewhat. He took a step back and said something into his thug's ear then left the room.

Anna stared as the Joker left the room and the guy he'd spoken too came and started untying her. She felt her bound hands disconnect from the back of the chair. As the guy went to work on her cuffed ankles she went into action. She reverse lifted her hands up over her head disconnecting the joints at her shoulders. The joints reconnected as she brought her rope bound hands crashing down on the back of the man's head. He fell and her feet and Anna kicked him in the jaw with her free foot. He was out. The key to her still cuffed ankle was still in the lock. She quickly unlocked it and went to help Jen. When Anna pulled the bag of Jen's head she saw Jen had been crying and held a finger to her lips in the global sign to stay quiet. Anna unlocked Jen's ankles when Jen started panicking. Anna tried to quiet her until she realized there here hands pulling her away from Jen's feet.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Anna screamed. The strong hands pulled her from the room. She fought, kicked and screamed with all her might but they were too strong. She looked at Jen one more time. Before they could get out of the door Anna grabbed the doorframe and shouted to Jen "Jen! I swear! I will get you out of this! It was all me not you! No matter what, it was me! Tell them it was me!" The men were able to pry Anna's hands off the frame and carried her away.

Anna still fought them all the way to the next door they came upon. This door wasn't metal like the one from the creepy operating looking one she was just in. This one was made of darkly polished wood with gold fixtures. They opened the door and tossed her inside. The instant she landed she ran at the door but the men had already closed it. She could hear them locking the door from the other side.

Anna kicked and pounded on the door for what seemed like an hour. She yelled for them to let Jen go and to just take her. Then at some point, her body gave out.

"What have I done?" She asked herself. "What the fuck have I done?" Poor Jen, who had been nothing but wonderful to her, was tied to that chair experiencing who knows what kind of torture. It was all because of her. She didn't cry but she dropped her head ashamed of herself. When she lifted her head she saw she was in a bedroom. The floor was covered in cotton candy pink plush carpet. The furniture was brand new and dolls covered every surface she could see. On the four-poster bed were even more dolls. She knew people collected them as a hobby but this was not a hobby she expected the Joker to have. Even stranger was that the too were all brand new. None of them looked old or tattered from being collected years earlier. Not one of them looked like they were owned for that a few days.

Hundreds of fake eyes stared at her. It was an incredibly unnerving experience. There was a large attached bathroom with a claw tub and brand new bath products. Hanging on the door was a hot pink terrycloth robe with the initials AK monogramed on it. "What the hell is all this?" She asked out loud. She closed the bathroom door and opened another. It led to a walk in closet. The closet was full of clothing: dresses, shirts, shoes, socks, and underwear. Sunglasses, jewelry, makeup, hair products, the closet had everything. All the clothing was in her size and all the makeup was for her coloring. She was really getting creept out.

She went to the bedside table looking for something to use as a weapon when she saw a photograph of a man and woman in an expensive silver frame. The photo looked to be on their wedding day. The man was in a brown suit and the woman was in a long ivory dress that looked more like a nice dress rather than a wedding dress. If it weren't for her bouquet of flowers and his flower pin, she would have thought they were just on a date somewhere kind of fancy. They looked young and happy. She studied their features more closely. They look familiar thought she was sure she's never met them before. It was like she remembered them from a dream or a dream of a dream. She had never experienced deja vu before but she'd have to guess it felt something like this.

Anna hyper focused on the woman's mouth, the man's chin, the woman's sharp eyebrows, and the man's eyes. A realization hit her like a ton of bricks; the features were her own. "Are these my…"

"…Parents," A man's voice finished the thought she'd said aloud. The Joker was in the room standing on the other side of the bed from Anna. She trembled a little but refused to let him know she was afraid.

"Where did you get this?" She asked accusingly."

"Where do you think I got it Anna?" he asked.

"Did you know them?"

"Yes, I knew them very well."

Anna's face paled "Did you kill them?" she never knew much about her birth parents. Only that they had both died and that Anna had been delivered early as an emergency. Was it because of him? Had he attacked her parents when her mother was pregnant? The Joker said nothing.

"It' was you wasn't it? You're who killed my parents."

"Yes, Anna, I killed your parents."

Anna felt her eyes burn. Her life was a living hell and it was all his fault. "Why?" she whispered.

"Your father killed your mother the day he fell in love with her. Then I killed your father because there was nothing left for him to live for."

"You don't make any sense. What happened to my parents?"

The Joker's left eye twitched; Anna noticed it right away. "Blepharospasm, you get them too?" She took in his eyes. They were the same scary shade of light blue as hers; same as the man in the picture who she knew now was her father. The truth was there but she couldn't bring herself to admit it. "Are you, his brother?" She asked knowing well he wasn't.

"I was an only child." He said back.

"Then you're… him?" She asked looking down at the picture again.

"I used to be."

"So, that makes you… you're my…"

"…Father" He said the word she couldn't.

Anna couldn't bring herself there, not yet. Not when there was still missing information and a chance her long lost father killed her mother. For all she knew he might want to finish what he started 16 years ago.

"Did you kill her?"

"She was a dead woman the moment she said I do."

"You're not answering my question! Did you kill my mother?" Anna was getting tired of this. He knew something and she needed to know what it was. She didn't care that he was the Joker and could come up with a thousand ways to kill her. She'd felt dead for most of her life anyway. But he knew what happened to her mother and she needed to hear the truth finally. "Answer me!" She braced her palms on the bed as she shook with anticipation.

The joker started at his daughter. He had to resist the urge to slap her for demanding something from him in such a tone. But she deserved to know the truth. She was desperate for it actually. He felt the urge to console her but didn't. She didn't need a hug. She needed to know the truth. He hoped she'd see fact and that it would probably smooth a lot of ground between them. But talking about that time in his life was something he had never done with anyone so close to the story. Still she needed to know. He gritted his teeth and told her about the night her mother died.

"The building we lived in was very old. A vermin infested tenement building in the Bowery. It had been raining that night and there was a leek. Our landlady gave your mother a baby bottle heater as a baby gift. They went to test it out and the electricity shorted. The floor was wet and your mother got electrocuted. She was rushed to the hospital, I wasn't there."

"Where were you?" She asked. Anna felt like she couldn't breathe. This information was answering the questions she had wondered all her life.

"I had told your mother I got a gig at a bar but I was really at that bar getting ready to help pull off a robbery. It was supposed to be a one-time thing. I was gonna use the money to buy us a house somewhere outside the city. The police found me at the bar and told me you both had been killed."

"But when you came to the hospital they should have told you the truth. Shouldn't they have?"

"I never got to the hospital. The men I agreed to help wouldn't let me out of their sight until the job was done. But things went wrong. Batman showed up and ruined everything!" He screamed the last sentence "He knocked me off the cat walk of the lab we were robbing into a vat of boiling acid and by the grace some unearthly force I lived. I have been the Joker ever since."

"Batman did this to you?"

"More than that. He's the one who hid you from me after the fact. He knew sooner or later I'd lean the truth and went through all his tricks to hide you away. If it weren't for him, you would have been with me from the very beginning. I would have never let you grow up in the system Anna."

"But that doesn't explain how you know about me now. How long have you known about me? Why didn't you come looking for me sooner?" She was desperate now. He never abandoned her. But why didn't he come get her the moment he found out she was alive?

"I only found out you were alive a few days ago. A friend of my wife sent her your information. Someone was looking for you. I've been trying to track you down from that day on."

"Your wife?" Anna was hopeful. Could her mother still be alive as well?

"Not your mother child. I buried her in Gotham cemetery, we can go see her if you want. I'm talking about my wife Harley."

"Harley Quinn? I've seen you both on the news a bunch of times. So she's my step mother?"

"She's who bought you all the clothes in the closet. Anything you don't like, just throw out. We wanted to make this room special for you when we found you but you ultimately found us."

"Sorry about your car."

He shrugged. "You're 16 and you stole your dad's car for a joyride. Can't think of anything more normal at your age."

"Jen, my friend. Can I see her?"

"Her we have to cut loose princess. We'll be leaving Gotham for a while. Can't have any one knowing what happened here."

Anna started to freak out. "No! It wasn't her idea and besides she's a street girl, she will keep her mouth shut I know she will. And she already works for you she sells for Crow. She knows what's at stake if she talks."

"Anna…"

"Dad, please? I haven't known a lot of people who were good to me and Jen was really good to me. I'll do whatever you want, only please don't hurt her."

She called him Dad. It might have been purely a manipulation on her part but what difference did it make? She called him Dad. He had a feeling she could ask for the moon and he'd give it to her if only she called him Dad again. He was doomed.

"Alright. I'll have my guys bring her back to her place. But you are not to see her." He held up his right fore finger.

Anna nodded. She believed he would keep to his word. "So where are we going?"

"That depends on you. Where would you like to go? I was planning to take Harley to Paris. But now that you are here, maybe we can go somewhere you would like to go. Preferably a place with no extradition."

Paris? Did he just say Paris? "I don't have a passport."

The joker laughed his creepy laugh as though she's said the funniest thing he's ever heard. "Neither do we, that's not how this family rolls young lady. Would you like to go to Paris?"

Anna looked disbelievingly at her father. She had always dreamed of going you Europe but never thought she'd ever get the chance. But that was before she found what her father just called her family. She nodded him head again smiling.

"Then to Paris we go mademoiselle. He bowed dramatically making Anna laugh. The sound of her laughter brought a smile to his lips.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" Anna piped up.

"Anything."

She looked around the room. "What's with the dolls?"

He looked around confused, "Don't girls like dolls?"

She laughed again, "Um, we do but you see, I'm 16 not 6."

He sighed, "Harley did warn me about that but… anyway. They will be gone by the time we get back."

"When are we leaving?"

He looked at his flashy gold watch. "2 hours. There's a suite case in the closet. Pack anything you like. We'll buy anything else you need when we get there. Come out when you're ready, the door won't be locked again." He turned and left. Anna was dumbfounded. How had so much happened in such a short amount of time? Most importantly she thought about what it meant that she had found her father and that he had been searching for her. He put together this room for her because he wanted her to feel at home here. Now they were going away to get to know one another. But she still worried about Jen. And what about Damien her new sort of boyfriend? Her head was spinning. She couldn't worry about anything now. She found her father. She learned about what happened to he mother.

Anna was on autopilot when she went to the closet and started weeding through the clothing. A lot of it was really nice. She picked a few things she liked and started packing them in the suite case. She was about to close it when she looked again at the picture of her parents on their wedding day. Then she picked up the frame and packed it with her things. Her first experience with a family vacation. She had no idea what to expect or how to behave. All she knew was she was going to Paris with her father, step mother, and probable a small army of her father's goon's. The facts of who her father was started to hit her as well. He was the Joker: green hair, red lips, white skin… The Joker.

There were so many more questions that needed answering. Anna tried to hold them in check and prayed that this trip would answer them. Some of them at the very least.

She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw she still had and hour before they had to leave and decided to wash up and change her clothes. She was still wearing the clubbing outfit that had been recently washed in the East River.

While washing in the streaming hot water Anna cleared her mind. She let go of anything that burdened her mind. Growing up in foster homes made her highly adaptable and this newest environment called for a tough exterior. Any weakness could get her killed and she had every intention of living. She wondered how exactly they would get to Paris having no passports and being wanted criminals but she imagined her father was more than a pro at getting from place to place unseen.

Freshly showered and dressed in black skinny jeans, black lace up boots and a red leather jacket Anna was almost ready to go. She just had one thing left to do.

Out in the hall, the Joker, Harley, Frost and a hand full of henchmen waited for Anna. She appeared with her rolling luggage looking beautiful. Mister J stood proud looking at his daughter. She confidently walked up to he and Harley. "Guess we're ready to go?" she asked.

"We are," he responded taking her hand and bringing her to Harley.

"Anna, meet your new stepmother, Harley Quinn."

Harley was thrilled "Anna, you're even prettier in person than in your mug shot. It's so good to finally meet you."

"Nice to meet you too… sorry I don't know what to call you."

"Anything you feel ok with: Harley, Mom, it's totally up to you."

"Cool," Anna.

"Shall we?" The Joker asked offering his arms to both the ladies. Harley linked her arm right away. Anna hesitated for a moment then followed suit. This was her life now and she was interested to learn more about this new girl she was becoming. She had a feeling though, out of all the roles she had adapted into, this one would be the most like her truest self.

"Paris, here we come." She said and they walked out the door.